26.

THE
POSSIBLE
WORLD

Francis Fukuyama may well have been right when he assumed that, in spite of all the turmoil and setbacks, we are on a march towards an end of history in which liberal democracies completely dominate. Equally, Robert Wright’s assumption that the destiny of mankind is win-win for evermore may also be correct.

However, creative societies have never had it easy, and they are now battling the aforementioned 12 internal threats. Similar battles have always been fought, and as we have seen, in most of history, creativity actually lost more often than it won. Indeed, if the West were just one big nation, its creativity would almost certainly also have been extinguished by now. It was saved by its decentralization.

The essential lesson, above anything else, is probably that “small is cool”. Ancient Greece and medieval Western Europe became so creative because of their many city states. Today, small nations typically score higher on humanistic, economic and environmental criteria than the big ones, and international opinion polls typically show that local mayors are far more popular than national leaders, who are again more popular than international leaders.⁵¹⁷

Could it perhaps be that the best model, ultimately, is a return to city states - small units loosely aligned in bigger, open networks? Why should we not have combinations of hippy states, economic Singapore-style power centres, international metropolises, and even perhaps a small Stone Age country for those who may prefer that? People are, indeed, very different, and we should embrace that rather than try to “harmonize” them. If we really decentralize our communities, but also keep them open to trade, we will, in many ways, have copied the robust structure of natural ecosystems, Ancient Greece, free markets or the internet as a way to defending creativity.

In this connection, there is an observation about democracy that we should not ignore. We think of democracy is “rule by the people” as opposed to “rule by dictator”. However think about this: when we go shopping in a market economy, we compare offers from countless companies that may each be ruled in dictatorial ways by their CEO and/or owner. And yet, in spite of all these dictators, we are free. We are free, because we can vote with our feet; if we don’t like any of the offerings in a bakers shop, we don’t call for a hand-vote to have them changed, but we can instead to another shop, and this is how our transaction remains based on voluntary win-win. The bigger and more centralized a democracy becomes, the less freedom we have. It is increasingly rule by a majority with whom we may disagree.

One thing is for certain: we can never establish a single utopia in which everyone is happy, because we are far too diverse for that. But we can make a network of open and dynamic communities akin to the Greek or medieval mini-states, each of which is unique, constantly experimenting and always fiercely competing, so that together they find the better solutions.

If we really choose this way, here are some examples of what the future might well offer us:

As wealth keeps growing, the world’s population peaks before or around 2050 at 8-9 billion, after which it plummets, so that 100 years later it is only 3-4 billion.

The average productivity in the most professional farms quadruples through genetic engineering combined with computer-controlled drip irrigation, robotic precision planting and precision weeding and so on.

This, combined with a declining population, means that approximately half the globe is nature reserves by year 2100. These are predominantly owned or operated by private benefactors and companies, which combine protection with gentle tourism.

We use travelling-wave reactors and transmutation to utilize and degrade our existing nuclear waste. However, in parallel we have introduced first thorium based fission, which has been followed by compact nuclear fusion.

Landfills with mixed waste have virtually all been reprocessed with plasma arc technology, and the metals in them have been recycled.

Most cars are electric, but you still see sports cars with internal combustion engines (beautiful noise!). These use biofuels made with gene-modified algae.

Centralistic societies have largely gone the way of the central mainframe computer; we have instead entered the age of decentralized rule, small city-states and loose federations.

In the same vein, antitrust regulation is widely applied to public services, so that these are offered by tens of thousands of private companies via outsourcing or public service shops. This has fostered great creativity plus extreme drops in the prices of most “public” services.

We have truly entered the age of crowdsourcing, and states initiate tens of thousands of new innovation prizes, idea competitions and so on every year. Much of the education activities in schools and universities are centred on participation in these.

Most learning has become based around online lectures and instructive multiplayer games, which people call “geek games”. The number of students studying simultaneously at each top university therefore exceeds millions, and the best professors gain global rock star reputations (and salaries). The art of giving an absolutely captivating lecture reaches new highs all the time, and universities make much of their money from advertising related to their online courses.

Almost no states take out unsecured loans anymore, and most large pension funds now refuse to invest in unsecured government bonds for ethical reasons. Instead, most states have sovereign wealth funds for stabilization purposes, and since this shift took place, there have been no major economic crises in any of the relevant states.

Realizing that taxes kill creativity and marginalize people, most communities have settled for top tax rates of approximately 20% and VAT and corporate tax rates at or below 10%. However, tax structure and taxation levels are largely left to local communities, who are not obliged to mirror others.

For the first time in several centuries, there is now a steady decline in the number of laws and regulations. Furthermore, many of those that remain can now be read and understood by computers which can tell anyone within seconds whether, for instance, a proposed house would be legal to build or a proposed financial transaction violates any rules.

Lightweight aircraft powered by nuclear thermal rockets can leave the atmosphere and fly from Europe to Australia within three hours. Space- travelling rockets using the same technology can reach 20% of the speed of light and are commuting regularly between the solar system’s planets. Mars is only 20 minutes away at that speed, but when you factor in acceleration and deceleration, it takes eight hours for an unmanned rocket to get there. Numerous robotic camps have been set up within the planetary system, and there are tourist hotels on Mars and the Moon.

The survival of virtually all known species has been secured by genetic and/or biological backups; the latter via a collaboration between zoos, botanical gardens and aquariums across the globe. Furthermore, using genetic reconstruction ,we have also begun restoring selected extinct animal and plant species. The first “Mesolithic Park” with mammoths, sabre-toothed tigers and woolly rhinoceros has been established in Chile, where it has become one of the world’s major tourist attractions. Russia, Greenland and Canada plan to take up the competition.

Earth has established an effective missile-based defence against comets that might otherwise trigger mass extinction of millions of species and threaten ourselves, and we have mapped most of these potential threats for several decades out.

The dreaded labour-shortage due to global ageing has been totally avoided via the use of hundreds of millions of super-smart robots.

Self-driven cars have become so safe that they are allowed to drive 200 km/h on many highways except in Germany, where the limit is set at 300 km/h and in Texas, where it is 300 mph. The number of traffic accidents has decreased markedly.

People can be vaccinated against most cancers to which they are genetically predisposed, and also against alcoholism, drug addiction and an ever-increasing variety of common diseases.

Via vaccination programmes and knock-out genes, we have eradicated yellow fever, malaria, dengue fever, guinea worm, smallpox and polio.

Golden rice and other genetically modified crops, combined with modern agricultural technologies, have eliminated malnutrition around the world and Africans have, by 2100, become as rich as the Germans were in 2000. The African population has consequently begun falling rapidly.

Global life expectancy has risen to 120 years, where people with healthy lifestyles can expect to be in really good shape until they reach around 100 years of age.

You can have a meaningful discussion with computers over the internet. This AI technology is used for fact-finding and many other purposes, but it is particularly popular for providing mentoring services related to education and for developing scientific hypothesis and technical opportunities.

This book started by quoting Alan Shepard talking about his moonwalk in 1971. Like the other astronauts, this man obviously had many skills, but most important was perhaps his incredible optimism. Ten years before he came to walk on the Moon, he was destined to be the US’s first astronaut, and on May 5, 1961, he sat strapped in his seat at the top by a ten-story, 33-ton rocket loaded with highly explosive fuel; waiting to be shot into space.

And he waited.

And he waited, because the control centre said there was a “technical problem”. That sounds rather nerve-wracking, but when he after four hours of waiting contacted the control centre, it was not to ask for crisis therapy or legal assistance. No, he just asked them this: “Why don’t you fix your little problem and light this candle?” They did, and he blasted off with his golf gear and all.

We should also get going, because while we do have problems, there are actually excellent solutions available, and the results could be heavenly.